Smurf movie on track for 2010 release

The first official image from Sony Picture Animations’ The Smurfs popped up on the Internet yesterday. The movie is in the preproduction phase and features 3D animation and live actors à la Alvin and the Chipmunks. It’s on track to hit theaters December 17, 2010. This gives you time to get into a Smurfy state of mind.

Film bloggers are assuming the pictured blue creature is “Clumsy Smurf,” the main character in the rumored storyline. Supposedly, Clumsy is given to a human child, Sophie, as a doll from Belgium but she quickly discovers he’s a living Smurf.

Belgium? Long before Hanna-Barbera released its popular children’s cartoon in the United States in 1981, the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford (aka Peyo) introduced Smurfs in a series of comic strips, making their first appearance in the Belgian comics magazine Le Journal de Spirou in 1958. In the photograph below you’ll see Peyo drawing a Smurf from a model. Notice the similarity between the model and the Smurf in the poster?

The film’s director is Raja Gosnell, whose credits include Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Scooby-Doo., and J. David Stem, David N. Weiss (Shrek 2, Shrek the Third) and Audrey Wells (George of the Jungle) wrote the script.

Sony is keeping the cast under wraps but rumors are floating around that John Lithgow (as Gargamel) and Julia Sweeny are in the film.

This seems like a film that should be geared to kids but the poster’s Scarface reference (Remember when Al Pacino shot the M16 with an M203 grenade launcher?) might lead you to think there will be something in this movie for the late-night pretzel-chomping crowd as well.